Smoke from Western wildfires spreads at high altitudes across the Southeast

Red Flag Warnings in effect for areas of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California

Near Surface vegetation fire smoke
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 8, 2019. Near Surface vegetation fire smoke near the Earth’s surface.

These images represent the forecast for the distribution of smoke from vegetation fires at 6 p.m. MDT September 8, 2019. If the predictions are correct, smoke is going to be heavily affecting some areas in Nevada Saturday.

Near Surface Smoke (in the map above) is what affects people and animals in real time. Vertically integrated smoke higher in the atmosphere (in the map below) can have additional environmental effects and can contribute to interesting sunsets.

Vertically Integrated vegetation fire smoke
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 8, 2019. Vertically Integrated vegetation fire smoke at high altitudes.
Red Flag Warnings
Red Flag Warnings in effect September 8, 2019.

 

 

Political candidate creates four-minute ad emphasizing the Camp Fire and climate change

political ad wildfire fire
Screenshot from the video below.

Our policy on Wildfire Today about politics is that it “…will not be discussed, unless it directly affects wildland fire or firefighters”.

A presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, has created a four minute video ad in which most of those minutes are spent on the topic of the devastating Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed over 14,000 homes in Northern California in November, 2018. The ad also discusses climate change.

Senator Sanders may be using wildfire as a means to talk about climate change, but it is unusual for a political candidate to put this amount of effort into the subject of wildland fire.

Wildfire Today is not going to endorse politicians. If other candidates put forth a similar amount of effort on the subject of wildland fire, we will cover those as well.

Wildfire smoke forecast for Saturday evening

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There could be significant effects Saturday in some areas of Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Northwest Nevada

Near Surface vegetation fire smoke
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. Vegetation fire smoke near the Earth’s surface. NOAA.

These images represent the forecast for the distribution of smoke from vegetation fires at 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. If the predictions are correct, smoke is going to be heavily affecting some areas in Northern California, Southern Oregon, and Northwest Nevada late in the day Saturday.

Near Surface Smoke (in the map above) is what affects people and animals in real time. Vertically integrated smoke higher in the atmosphere (in the map below) can have additional environmental effects and can contribute to interesting sunsets.

Vertically Integrated vegetation fire smoke
Forecast for 6 p.m. MDT September 7, 2019. Vertically Integrated vegetation fire smoke at high altitudes. NOAA.

Walker Fire south of Susanville grows to 38,000 acres

The Northern California fire is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 17 miles south of Susanville

Walker Fire
Walker Fire. September 5, 2019. InciWeb.

(UPDATED at 7:40 a.m. PDT September 8, 2019)

After being slowed earlier by cloud cover, the Walker Fire south of Susanville, California was very active late in the day Saturday, spreading toward the northeast in two large fingers 2 and 4.5 miles long, coming to within 5 miles of US Highway 395. Spot fires occurred more than half a mile ahead. The fire grew to the north up Wheeler’s Peak drainage and east around the Antelope Fire scar. Murdock Crossing is between the two large fingers, and now has fire to the west, south, and east.  At 7:35 p.m. Saturday the fire was one mile south of Antelope Lake.

(Click here to see all articles about the Walker Fire on Wildfire Today, including the most recent.)

A mapping flight at 7:35 p.m. MDT Saturday found that the fire had burned 38,049 acres. It is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 17 miles south of Susanville.

The Incident Management Team reports that during the period of reduced fire activity firefighters made progress on the south side, assisted by Very Large Air Tankers, water-scooping air tankers, conventional large air tankers, and dozers.

Map Walker Fire
Map of the Walker Fire. The red line was the perimeter mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 7:35 p.m. PDT September 7, 2019. The white line was the perimeter at 9:38 p.m. PDT September 6, 2019.

Resources assigned to the fire include 11 hand crews, 46 fire engines, and 6 helicopters for a total of 535 personnel.

The weather forecast for the Walker Fire area on Sunday calls for 67 degrees, relative humidity of 32 percent, clear skies, and winds out of the west-southwest at 8 to 13 mph gusting at 20 to 24.


(UPDATED at 8:43 a.m.  PDT September 7, 2019)

Walker Fire Susanville Quincy
The red line was the perimeter of the Walker Fire mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 9:38 p.m. PDT September 6, 2019. The shaded area represents intense heat.

A mapping flight Friday night showed that the Walker Fire in Northern California had grown to 24,040 acres, an increase of about 6,000 acres since the last reported size of 17,912. The fire spread approximately 4 miles to the north and 6 miles to the east since noon on September 6. (see map above)

The fire is 15 miles northeast of Quincy and 21 miles south of Susanville.

The Plumas County Sheriff’s Office ordered mandatory evacuations for the Genesee Valley road corridor, the Ward Creek area, and the Flournoy Bridge area (through CodeRED).

Continue reading “Walker Fire south of Susanville grows to 38,000 acres”

Research: selecting the optimum escape route at a wildland fire

Escape Route Index: A Spatially-Explicit Measure of Wildland Firefighter Egress Capacity

Escape Route Index

Above: a figure from the research

Previously we covered research that is underway to help wildland firefighters determine the best escape routes from a dangerous fire. A paper published in 2017 looked at the use of LiDAR to analyze the effects of slope, vegetation density, and ground surface roughness on travel rates for wildland firefighters’ escape routes. And earlier this year we reported on research that studied crowd-sourced fitness data to estimate rates of foot travel on slopes and how it could be integrated into recommendations for escape routes.

Below are excerpts from a research paper that was published July 8, 2019, written by Michael J. Campbell, Wesley G. Page, Philip E. Dennison, and Bret W. Butler. It is titled, Escape Route Index: A Spatially-Explicit Measure of Wildland Firefighter Egress Capacity. Link to the entire document.

From the Abstract

A previously published, crowd-sourced relationship between slope and travel rate was used to account for terrain, while vegetation was accounted for by using land cover to adjust travel rates based on factors from the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). Land cover was found to have a stronger impact on ERI values than slope. We also modeled Escape Route Index (ERI) values for several recent wildland firefighter entrapments to assess the degree to which landscape conditions may have contributed to these events, finding that ERI values were generally low from the crews’ evacuation starting points.

From the Conclusions

In this paper, we have introduced a new metric for assessing and mapping egress capacity, or the degree to which one can evacuate from a given location, on a broad, spatial scale based on existing landscape conditions. ERI is not a single metric, but a suite of four spatially-explicit metrics that define the relative travel impedance caused by terrain and land cover faced by a fire crew, should that fire crew need to evacuate. The intent is that this modeling technique will be employed to aid in wildland firefighter safety operations prior to engaging a fire, acting as a decision support tool. Given that the metric relies on US nationwide, publicly-available datasets, the goal is that ERI metrics would be mapped in advance of fire suppression and used to direct fire crews toward potential control locations with higher capacity for evacuation, thus reducing the potential for injurious or even fatal entrapments.

ERI does not map escape routes, per se, it highlights areas that have a greater or lesser capacity for providing efficient escape routes. Areas with high ERI values will likely have an abundance of open, easily-traversable terrain, through which many potential escape routes may exist requiring little alteration of the land cover. Conversely, areas with low ERI values possess some combination of rugged terrain and dense vegetation, thus making the designation of suitable escape routes difficult or even impossible.

Photos during tests of exploding targets

(Above: photo by Idaho State Fire Marshal’s Office)

During the last week of August, the Idaho State Fire Marshal’s Office, along with other experts and investigators from around the Pacific Northwest participated in scientific testing of exploding targets and their propensity for igniting wildfires in the forest environment.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Steve. Typos or errors, report them HERE.